


apples and oranges

by princelogical



Series: Sanders Sides Misc. Work [25]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Gender Dysphoria, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Self-Harm, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 12:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15001226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princelogical/pseuds/princelogical
Summary: Logan doesn’t remember the exact moment “girl” felt wrong but there’s this moment in sophomore year when he’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror and he feels like he’s seeing someone else.





	apples and oranges

**Author's Note:**

> I beg you to take the tagged warnings into serious account. The gender dysphoria is a constant theme that continues to show up. It’s heavy. I get it. Don’t read it if this will hurt you in any form.

Logan wakes up and there’s a weight on his chest. At first, it feels like an appropriate metaphor to describe the heaviness he feels inside that makes him want to stay in bed and never get up. Then he realises that the weight is in fact very literal and he’s jerking up, knocking his older brother backwards onto his bed. Virgil scowls at him and dusts off his jacket.

“Dude,” Virgil says, “take it easy.”

“What were you hoping to accomplish by sitting on my chest?” Logan wishes he could take the morning deepness of his voice and put it a bottle to use over and over again.

“I wanted to wake you up,” Virgil says, “and I couldn’t use the air horn again.”

Logan grunts and sits up, running a hand through his too-long hair. It’s past his collarbones now. He’d give anything to cut it at this point. He tosses aside his covers and stretches, reaching for his glasses.

“’I couldn’t use the air horn again’ should not be such a casual statement, Virgil.”

“Blame Roman. He’s the idiot that gave me the idea.”

“Fine. I shall blame him.”

“Good.” Virgil picks up Logan’s phone which he immediately snatches from Virgil’s hands. “What’re the plans for today, Jen?”

Logan winces at the name. It feels like a sharp pain in his head to hear. He can’t blame Virgil. Virgil doesn’t know. It’s not his fault. But still… it hurts.

“I do not know. What do you have in mind?”

“Dunno. I just wanna get out of the house. Dad’s in a bad mood.”

Their eyes meet solemnly. “I will call Patton,” Logan says. “I will see if he would like to get together.”

“Good idea.” Virgil heads to the door. “Hey, did you take my blue necktie mom bought me?”

Logan swallows. “Uh… I thought it would be nice to uh-”

Virgil raises a hand and smiles. “It’s okay, sis. It’s not my style anyway. You can have it.”

“Oh. Thank you.” He ignores the “sis,” part. _He doesn’t know he doesn’t know he doesn’t know._

“Besides. It fits your nerd aesthetic anyway.”

Logan rolls his eyes. “Go away, Virgil. This is my room.”

“It used to be ours.”

“You moved out. Therefore, it is mine.”

“It’s ours for the summer.”

“It is still mine.”

Virgil smirked. “Sure, buddy. Just let me know what Patton says. I can always invite Roman.”

“All right.”

The door closes. Logan slides his glasses and takes a deep breath.

Time to live another day.

///

_Logan doesn’t remember the exact moment “girl” felt wrong but there’s this moment in sophomore year when he’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror and he feels like he’s seeing someone else. Every curve isn’t his no matter how many times he traces over it. His skin crawls and itches as his hands cup at his chest and he feels like he’s suddenly carrying the weight of the world on his back._

_Then his dad knocks on the door and tells him to hurry out. He throws his clothes back and tries to go back to normal._

///

“Logan!”

Logan can’t help the smile that crosses his face upon hearing the joy in Patton’s voice as he says his name. He leans against the sink and turns the tap on, filling up a cup with water.

“Hello, Patton.”

“Whatchya calling for? Wanna hang out?”

Logan switches off the water and brings the cup to his lips. He’s careful not to look in the mirror and turns around to face the wall.

“Virgil and I would, yes.”

“Great! We can see a movie and get pizza.”

“That sounds all right.”

“Awesome! I should Google what the theatre’s playing.”

Logan sets the now-empty cup on the sink and walks out of the bathroom into the hall. He hears his mom and dad arguing downstairs. At least it hasn’t evolved to a shouting match quite yet. Logan walks back into his room, heart thrumming in his chest as he hears Patton typing on his computer on the other end.

“Hey, Lo.”

“Yes?”

“Have you,” Patton’s voice lowers, “talked to Virgil yet?”

“No. I have not yet gathered the courage.”

“That’s okay. You know there’s no rush.”

“I know,” Logan says. “I am telling him today.”

Patton’s quiet on the other end for a long moment. Then, “When?”

“I am attempting to reach for tonight.”

“Whatever happens, I’ll always be your friend.”

“He won’t tell my parents,” Logan says. He’s unsure if he’s trying to convince himself or Patton.

“I know he won’t,” Patton says. “He couldn’t do that to you.”

“What if he doesn’t accept me?”

“Virgil’s not a transphobe.”

“Yeah, but what if he’s too caught up on that I’ve always been his sister? What if he refuses to acknowledge me as a guy?”

“Logan,” Patton says softly. “It’ll be okay. I think Virgil will be accepting. You remember what happened when he came out. He would never inflict that hurt on anyone, kiddo.”

The term of endearment sends warmth surging through Logan’s heart. “Okay... Thank you, Patton. Now. What movie are we thinking about?”

///

_“Patton.”_

_Patton smiles, screen glitching for a moment and freezing. Then, it unfreezes and Patton is laying against his pillows, laptop balanced against his knees. His smile remains._

_“Hey, Jen!”_

_“Can we talk about something serious?”_

_“Sure thing.” Patton tries to wrestle his smile but it doesn’t go away. Logan appreciates the effort._

_“You cannot tell anyone.”_

_“Cross my heart and hope to die that I won’t.”_

_Logan winces. “Please do not hope to die.”_

_“It’s an expression.”_

_“Oh.” Silence._

_“You needed to tell me something?” Patton asks, voice going softer and eyes warm._

_“If you tell anyone, Patton, I will- I will never be friends with you again.”_

_Hurt crosses Patton’s face. “I’d never tell your secrets.”_

_“Okay.” Logan takes a deep breath. “I identify more as male than female.”_

_Patton doesn’t even flinch. “Oh yeah?”_

_“Yes. I understand if you are… disgusted or you feel like things have to be different between us now, however, I assure you, I am still me.”_

_“I know that. Of course you’re still you, bucko.” Patton smiles._

_“Thank you, Patton.”_

_“Of course. I’m assuming you don’t want anyone to know so no pronoun change… but do you want to be called something besides Jen?”_

_Logan frowns. “I have not… considered a new name.”_

_“Oo! Can I help pick one out?”_

_Logan smiles fondly. “You may.”_

_“Yes!” Patton says excitedly. “So, I was thinking…. Something like Roger would be cool…”_

_“Absolutely anything but that, Patton.”_

///

Roman, Virgil, and Logan all meet up at the movie theater. Logan tucks his hair up into a beanie, wears the thinnest bra he owns, polo, jeans, and, yes, the necktie he stole from Virgil. He looks like a walking stereotype and he looks nothing like a guy; it makes him want to rip apart his skin and throw a tantrum like he did when he was really young.

But he isn’t quite as young anymore so instead, he rolls his eyes at Virgil and Roman’s banter. He bites back when Roman turns his playful teasing onto him. He takes it when everyone calls him “Jen” to the point it makes his stomach roll. When the young boy at the slushie machine calls him “miss,” he pretends not to notice Patton’s sympathetic gaze.

He watches an action movie full of muscled men without shirts and again, Logan’s patience is tested. He grips onto the seats for dear life, worries his lip in his mouth. He wants it to end. He hates men. He hates their stupid perfect flat chests and their testosterone and the way they flaunt around with bodies that Logan wants more than anything. He hates men so much.

If only he didn’t want to be one so bad.

When the movie ends, Roman teases Logan for looking so scared, makes some stupid joke about the action being too much for his “homebody nerd brain.” But then he wraps his arm around Logan and ruffles the top of his hat like Roman does with his own little brother and it makes Logan feel a little less stupid.

///

_It’s two in the evening after Logan finishes his ACT. He stands in the mirror once again and tries to breathe past the thick heaviness in his chest. He tries and it doesn’t work. There’s a pile of ace bandages on the sink from when he busted his growth plate in his knee, four years ago. They’re enticing. They whisper for him to reach out and grab them._

_Logan picks them up._

_He’s not ignorant- he knows the harm that binding with ace bandages can cause. He reblogs post after post that warns to never ever ever ever do it. He should wait. He can save up for a real binder. He is not going to be foolish. Logan doesn’t need these._

_But he’s putting them around his bare chest, clasping the ends. He slips his shirt back on and gasps. He feels a little more real, a little more… him. The shirt does enough to hide his curves and the bandages press his chest in, making him look as if his breasts were barely there._

_Then reality hits him and realises just how hard it is to breathe, just how much they push onto his chest and ribs; he’s gasping and ripping them off before he can register anything. They fall to the floor with the thinnest thump. Logan runs a hand through his hand. What has this come to? What is he **doing**?_

_He rushes out of the bathroom. Dials Patton’s number._

_“Patton, I need someone to talk to.”_

_Patton’s voice is steady. Real. “I’m here.”_

///

Logan forgets to take off his hat when he gets home and his dad glares at him as they set out plates and serve dinner. His mom looks uncomfortable and no one says a word until they’ve all seated and have begun eating.

“You look like a butch,” his dad snaps. Logan flinches and claws his hand into his arm to prevent himself from yelling. “You trying to act like a boy?”

Abashed, Logan pulls off the hat, frizzy hair tumbling to his shoulders. He sets it between his knees and tries to remember to breathe.

“Leave Jen alone,” Virgil snaps. Logan feels detached as if Virgil is defending a different person than him. “She can wear what she wants.”

“She’s going to give people the wrong idea,” his mom says quietly.

Virgil’s face screws up in anger. “I’d expect you to defend her, mom!”

“Honey-”

“We already have a gay son going to school to prance around and be a fairy, we don’t need people thinking that Jen wants to be a boy or some shit,” his dad says. “Where did we go wrong?”

“No, Greg, don’t say that,” his mom hisses. “It’s just a phase; they’ll both get over it.”

Virgil stands up, slamming his fork onto the table. “Whatever. I’m done. Screw all of you.” Logan’s eyes meet Virgil’s and he flinches at the fire he sees in them, burning viciously bright. Virgil storms upstairs, unzipped hoodie flapping behind him like a cape.

Logan stabs at his broccoli and tries to speak through the tightness in his throat. “It’s not a phase. Virgil’s an adult.”

“Honey, he’s only twenty years old. He doesn’t know what he wants yet.”

“That’s the problem with these kids, they think they have it all figured out already.” Logan’s dad’s voice is full of so much spite that Logan almost vomits.

“There’s nothing wrong with being gay. It is not a phase.” Logan gathers up more courage than he ever has had in his life. “And there’s nothing wrong with being trans either. What if I was trans?”

“You’d go to counselling immediately.” His mom’s eyes widen in alarm. “You don’t think you’re a boy, do you, Jen?”

Logan shakes his head furiously. “Of course not.” He shoves a bite into his mouth. It’s glue, thick and uncomfortable against his tongue. “Can I go study? I’ll clean up later.”

“Sure, honey. You’re a good girl.” Logan swallows down the bile in his throat at his mom’s words and pushes in his chair and makes the walk upstairs. He hears his mom’s quiet murmur from below. “I don’t know what’s gotten into those kids. Where did we go wrong?”

///

_“I’m not a boy,” Logan whispers angrily, sitting on the closed toilet seat. His fingers rip at his stomach, breasts, and thighs. “You are not a boy. You are being illogical, stupid girl. You are not a boy. You do not look like one, you’re not a boy, you’re not-”_

_He lets out a sob and with an animal-like cry, he shoves his fist into his stomach as hard as he can and he winces at the pain. Logan breathes deeply, hands shaking as he lays his hand back across his stomach, as if to apologise to his body for treating it like dirt._

_“I’m a guy,” he whispers._

_The image doesn’t transform. The image in the mirror still doesn’t feel like him._

_But something in his chest eases._

_“I’m a boy,” he whispers._

_It feels right. And it terrifies him._

///

Logan creeps to his and Virgil’s room, cracking open the door hesitantly. Virgil sits on his bed, furiously typing away at his laptop. Logan fidgets with the doorknob until he finally opens his mouth.

“Virgil, I need to speak with you.”

Virgil looks up from his laptop. He catches the serious look on Logan’s face and slowly lowers the lid of his laptop and sets it aside. Logan shuts the door and Virgil’s eyebrows raise.

“Serious stuff, I guess.”

“Yes.” Logan fidgets with the buttons on his polo. “It is quite important. I want you to promise me something.”

Virgil frowns. “You’re giving me anxiety.”

“Please. You have had anxiety since you were ten.”

Virgil laughs. “You’re right. What do you want me to promise?”

“No matter how you react… you must promise to never tell our parents.”

“Are you in trouble, Jen?” Virgil asks seriously.

“Maybe,” Logan says. His breath catches and he forces himself to take deep breaths so that he doesn’t begin doing something foolish and illogical like crying. “I don’t know.”

“Hey, sit down.” Virgil taps the bed with his foot. Logan obeys, hands shaking. “Did you kill someone? Take drugs? Have sex? Holy shit, are you pregnant-”

“No, Virgil, I have… No.”

“Tell me. My mind is coming up with way too many terrible possibilities right now,” Virgil says and he looks on the edge of a panic attack himself.

“I’m not a girl,” Logan bursts out and it’s the exact opposite of how he wanted this to go. He wanted to begin explaining gender dysphoria to Virgil and maybe throw in some hints about how it was something he dealt with. Then he’d ease Virgil into his confession. Not just… dump it.

Virgil merely blinks. “What do you mean you’re not a girl?”

“I mean.” Logan claws his fingers into the blankets of Virgil’s bed and Virgil watches the action with a troubled frown. “I’m a guy. I mean, not physically. I don’t have… I have breasts and a vagina and all of the anatomy one would consider female and I know that it-” Virgil continues to stare and Logan’s stomach sinks further. “I don’t have a _penis_ or anything- I, just. I have…”

“Take a deep breath,” Virgil says. “You’re spiraling.”

“I am not.”

“You are too. Deep breaths.”

The first breath is like a sucker punch to his chest and the next one is even worse. Logan covers his mouth with a hand and looks to Virgil with terror in his eyes. Virgil sighs softly and ticks his fingers up, counting. 4. 7. 8.

When Logan’s breathing is back under control, he feels exhausted, terrified, and humiliated. He stares down at his hands and adjusts the watch on his wrist. He waits and waits for Virgil’s verdict to come but it never does. There is only silence. Logan wants to throw something.

“How long have you been… dealing with this?”

Logan winces. “Sophomore year.”

“What are your pronouns?” Virgil asks finally in a tone that’s gentler than Logan has ever heard him use before.

“He and him.” Logan doesn’t look up.

“Do you… do you want me to call you something else besides Jen?”

Slowly, Logan nods. “Logan,” he says. “You don’t have to if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“Does it make you comfortable?”

Logan considers it. “Yes.”

“Then I’ll call you Logan.”

“You cannot tell mom or dad,” Logan says. “It is essential you understand-”

“I understand.” Logan looks up and Virgil smiles. “Not to take away from your moment, bro,” Logan’s heart leaps, “but I have something to tell you too.”

“Yes?”

“I’m dating Roman.”

Logan’s eyes widen and he forces his smile back to a scowl. “That insufferable idiot?”

“Oh, c’mon. He’s not that bad.”

“He is incorrigible.”

Virgil nudges him. “Be nice.”

“He suggested you use an air horn to wake me up!”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Never.”

Virgil bursts into laughter. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

Logan smiles. “Hey… Virgil?”

“Hm?”

“Can you do something for me?”

“What do you want me to do?”

Logan walks over to his dresser and opens the drawer, pulling out a pair of scissors. He crosses the room and hands them to Virgil.

“Will you cut my hair? I cannot do it myself. I want it to look all right.”

Virgil smiles sadly. “You sure? Mom and dad will have a fit. You don’t have to cut your hair for me to see you as a boy, you know that right?”

“I know… I am prepared to deal with the consequences.”

“You make it sound so serious.”

“It is.”

“I know,” Virgil says quietly. He sighs. “If they ever find out… if you tell them or someone outs you or whatever- if they throw you out, Roman and I are getting an apartment this fall. You can sleep on the floor.” Virgil smirks and winks.

“Thank you,” Logan says. “I want to finish high school before I tell them.”

“Understandable. Now, sit.” Virgil parts his legs and pats. Logan sits down. “Ready?”

“I am ready.”

Virgil begins snipping.

///

**_Tumblr text post by loganofstudyblr at 12:52 am:_ ** _I have discovered something about myself that frightens me. I do not usually allow myself to be run by emotions. However, this is something that terrifies me more than words can describe. I cannot say how long I have known or exactly how I figured it out. All I know is that I felt something was different since I was a young child. I am still young. I am in my junior year of high school. People will call this wrong. They will call it a phase. They will invalidate everything. However, this feels right._

_I am a boy._

_I have finally found a word that describes how I have felt since I was quite young. “Gender dysphoria.” That word leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It means I finally understand what is going on. I have knowledge. Never before have I been so afraid of knowledge._

_My family is unaccepting. If I told them, I would face consequences that I am more afraid of then I would like to admit. My father is a blatant homophobic and transphobic abuser. My mother is just ignorant._

_I am afraid. However, I cannot deny the peace I have found in accepting myself. I am me. I am still the same. I am just a trans guy. Someday, I do hope that I look back on this and feel relief that circumstances have improved. For, they can and they will._

_I am going to tell my brother when he comes home from college. Wish me luck._

_The point I am trying to make is that I would now like to be referred to using he/him pronouns. I guess this is what one would consider a coming out. It feels… good._

_-Logan._

///

In the morning, Logan’s dad yells. He calls him a brat. Then a bitch. Then a worthless bitch. His mom sighs in frustration and asks him why he has to rebel so much. Is he trying to embarrass them? Is he trying to hurt them? Logan sits and takes it. Then, he goes to a movie with Virgil. Virgil calls him Logan. He stumbles and trips but Logan can see that he’s trying.

Virgil offers to buy him a binder- Logan hugs him tighter than ever. They talk for hours after the movie lets out- about Roman, about Patton, about gender, about their parents- plans of running away that they both know will never happen.

Finally, Logan says, “Thank you for accepting me.”

Virgil just grins in response as he starts up the car. “You’re my little bro. I’m always here, okay?”

Logan nods; the engine revs. Virgil turns up the radio and the music pulses against Logan’s skin. Logan sends a silent thanks to whoever’s listening that he doesn’t have to be so alone anymore.

After all, the closet doesn’t feel quite as dark when there’s someone there to help light up the room.

**Author's Note:**

> This is self-projection. Not going to beat around the bush here. I didn’t know how to end this happy but I tried to end it a little hopeful. I tried to give it structure but overall, this is mostly a vent piece. Please take this into account if the characters seem a little (a lot), ooc.


End file.
